The 4 Ps in Action: Sport Marketing Gets Real

This week, my first-year sport marketing students were introduced to one of the foundations of the discipline, the Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

But rather than stopping at definitions, I wanted students to immediately apply the Marketing Mix like someone working inside a sport organisation. This approach brings authenticity to learning. It gives students the chance to experiment with real decisions, use real data, and apply their knowledge like they would on the job, not just for an assessment, but as future sport marketers

The Scenario

“You’ve just joined the marketing team at an NRL club. Membership numbers have just been finalised for 2025, and the 2026 campaign is approaching fast. Your job is to review what’s currently being offered, identify what’s working and what’s not, and develop a new membership package using the Marketing Mix to guide your thinking.”

This gave students a clear, structured challenge that mirrored the kinds of decisions made in real sport organisations.

What We Used

To help students analyse their team, I created a short data pack including:

• 2024 NRL membership numbers from @SportsIndustryAU

• A Daily Telegraph article outlining membership trends and fan perks

  
  

These sources were timely, accessible, and grounded in real-world sport business reporting. The membership numbers gave students a comparative view of how each team was performing, while the media article helped them understand what kinds of perks and packages are currently in play. This context helped frame their analysis with relevance and realism.

Each group was randomly assigned an NRL club using a spinner, which meant not everyone got a team they knew, and there was A LOT of noise about who they wanted or didn't want, which added to the anticipation of the spin!

The Task (Step-by-Step)

1. Review the current membership offer: What does your assigned club currently provide? What perks are included? How is it priced? How do fans access it? How is it promoted?

2. Evaluate it using the 4 Ps

   • Is the Product appealing and valuable to fans?

   • Is the Price fair and competitive?

   • Is the Place (access or delivery) convenient?

   • Is the Promotion effective and reaching the right audience?

3. Create a new membership package for 2026: Use each of the 4 Ps to build your strategy:

   • Product: What’s included? Are you keeping some perks or introducing new ones?

   • Price: Will you offer tiered pricing, student rates, or loyalty discounts?

   • Place: Where and how can fans sign up? Online only? At games? Community hubs?

   • Promotion: What channels or ideas will you use to promote the package and win back fans?

4. Pitch your package back to the class: Explain how your new membership responds to the drop in numbers, how it improves on the current offer, and how it uses the Marketing Mix to deliver value to your club’s fans.

   
   

   Follow up Discussion Questions

   • What do you think this club’s fans really care about?

   • What’s working in their current offer and what isn’t?

   • Which P was easiest to improve and which was hardest?

   • Is your offer realistic and on-brand for your club?

   • How would you promote this to fans who didn’t sign up last season?

   
   

   Why It Worked

   For many of my students, this was their first time learning about the Marketing Mix. We had just introduced the 4 Ps — Product, Price, Place, and Promotion — so the goal wasn’t just to define them, but to help students actually see how these concepts work in sport marketing decision-making.

   
   

   I started with a mini lecture to introduce each P, using familiar sport examples; things like flexible ticket pricing, exclusive merch bundles, or digital-first fan packages. We talked through what these decisions looked like in real organisations, and I used discussion questions to get them thinking:

   • What makes a fan offer feel valuable?

   • What influences where and how fans engage?

   • Why might a flashy promotion not translate to long-term loyalty?

     
     

   We also explored examples like the Auckland Blues at Eden Park, discussing how Place isn’t just about location — it’s also about atmosphere, scale, and fit. Yes, Eden Park is iconic and accessible. But what does it mean when you're trying to fill a 50,000-seat stadium every week? How does that impact how the team thinks about Product (is the fan experience intimate or epic?), or Promotion (what story are they selling to get people in the door)?

   
   

   The activity then gave students a way to put this all into action. While the context was NRL memberships, the deeper goal was for students to use the Marketing Mix as a strategic tool, to evaluate, redesign, and communicate a clearer value proposition to fans.

   
   

   We talked about how changing one P influences the others:

   • If the Product changes (e.g. adding digital-only memberships), how does that shift Promotion or Place?

   • If the Price drops to attract a certain demographic, does that change what’s included or how it’s accessed?

   
   

   Students also picked up quickly on imbalanced mixes. They noticed how some clubs focus heavily on Promotion — social media pushes, slogans, giveaways — without updating the Product or addressing Place barriers. Others highlighted how repeating the same perks each year might not meet current fan needs.

   
   

   Because students had to address and justify each P, they couldn’t just gloss over weaker areas. It pushed them to think about how the Ps work together and how better balance leads to stronger strategy.
   

   For a first-year cohort, that shift from “what are the 4 Ps?” to “how would I use the 4 Ps to make real marketing decisions?” is a big step. This activity made that transition feel relevant, grounded, and real.

Ideas to Take It Further

This activity is perfect for first-years, but it's also easy to level up. For second or third-year students, or in digital sport marketing classes, try:

• Introduce Wild Cards: Disrupt the task mid-way with real-world scenarios:

  • "Your main competitor launches a free junior pass. How do you respond?"

  • "There’s a regional cyclone, your ‘Place’ strategy needs to shift."

• Use segmentation: Build or assign fan personas (e.g. regional members, families, Gen Z, lapsed fans) and ask students to design specifically for them.

• Benchmarking: Ask students to compare their club’s offer to a rival and explain how theirs stands out.

• Retention vs. acquisition: Shift the brief to focus on keeping current members rather than gaining new ones.

• Include KPIs: Define what success looks like and how they’ll measure impact (e.g. renewal rate, engagement, conversion).

• Fan feedback: Add a layer of data from (real or fictional) fan surveys and ask students to address key feedback in their pitch.

Final Thoughts

What made this activity work wasn’t just the sport, it was the real-world context. Students weren’t guessing or working off abstract examples. They had real data, a clear problem to solve, and a simple framework to guide their thinking.

Whether you’re teaching first-years or final-years, this is a flexible, scalable way to bring the Marketing Mix to life in a sport context.

The world is their (and your) oyster — especially when working with real data.